


Fallen Stars

by Blaze_X



Category: Transformers Animated (2007)
Genre: Original Character-centric
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-26
Updated: 2021-02-26
Packaged: 2021-03-16 23:08:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29707971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blaze_X/pseuds/Blaze_X
Summary: Out in the fringes of the Autobot Commonwealth, none of the usual rules apply.Comet, an Academy washout, has been most content with her current life as a salvage worker, but all that changes when Glacier Prime recruits her to his team, because of an ability she has that he thinks he can make use of. Now Comet must struggle with a role that was never in her programming.When the usual rules don't apply, what does being a hero even mean?
Kudos: 1





	Fallen Stars

Marengo, a once dead world that was allowed to flourish through the efforts of organic and mechanical races alike, it now served as a symbol of interspecies cooperation. It had two moons, the white moon, Ymir, the location of an Autobot outpost, and the red moon, Surtr, the location of a Decepticon outpost. The residents of the planet were fine with this arrangement so long as no fighting broke out between the two sides. That made Comet’s current mission a very delicate one, infiltrating Surtr to plant bugs, so they could listen in on the Decepticons.

When she first came to Ymir, it was not for this kind of job. She came here because the system had good salvage jobs. It was one of the few reasons any Autobots would choose to live at the edge of the Commonwealth, or technically outside it, like the Morengo system was. She was only roped into joining Glacier Prime’s team, because he noticed her cloaking ability and decided he could put it to better use.

Sneaking through a Decepticon base was nerve wracking. While cloaked, they wouldn’t be able to see her unless they knew what to look for, but she also couldn’t use her comms, or transform, or activate her batons without the cloak dropping. To remain hidden she had to be defenceless. Not a terrible tradeoff in most situations she cloaked, but this was beyond those situations.

Borealis, Ymir’s communications officer, was able to get a copy of the blueprints of the Surtr base for Comet to memorize. She was currently in the hangar bay, so if she remembered correctly, she had to go down the hall then make a right to the staircase, and that would take her to the command deck. So far everything was fine; she hadn’t even seen a decepticon yet. Which did make some sense, all scans of the base showed only three decepticon signals, which was a low number for a base this size, but the same could be said about the autobot base.

When she got to the command deck, there was only one decepticon there. She was a large femme, well large compared to Comet, Comet didn’t know enough about decepticon builds to know if this femme was large for a decepticon or just average sized. The decepticon femme was sitting infront of a monitor that displayed ship positions in this sector. Comet silently got closer and looked over the purple femme’s shoulders. Most of the ships were from other races, but there was a Decepticon command vessel that just entered the system. Based on its speed, Comet only had half a megacycle at most to get out of here before the base was overrun with more cons.

Comet placed a bug behind the chair, then slowly left the room. She had to place another bug in the communications room and the last one in the recreation room. Communications should be on the same floor, so she went there first. Luckily, and somewhat surprisingly, no one was there, hiding the bug was easy enough. Now she just had the recreation room, and she had a strong suspicion that at least one decepticon would be in there.

She went back down to the main floor and walked down the hall until she made it to the rec room. She peeked around the corner into the room, both the other decepticons were in there.

“Megatron will be here soon, so everything must be perfect.” The taller mech with deep maroon and violet armor stood on a step stool to clean a large stained glass window that depicted a blue decepticon femme with a shield that covered most of her body.

Megatron? It was Megatron on that command ship? She had to get out of here as soon as possible.

“You clean that thing every few solar cycles anyway. I don’t think it can be any cleaner.” A femme smaller than the one Comet saw on the command deck responded. Her armor was black with purple details. What was with decepticons and purple?

“I am not just cleaning in, I am polishing it. Our Lady must be as shining in memoriam as she was in life.”

“Look, I miss her too, but this is obsessive.”

Look at that, Decepticons were capable of mourning their dead, you learn something new everyday. Comet decided it would be safe to wait for the two to leave the room, but she was also a bit pressed for time.

“It is not obsessive, it is devotion. You would do well to learn a thing two about it, Shadowfire.”

Shadowfire pulled out a segmented sword ready to attack the other ‘con while he wasn’t looking, then decided against it and put it away. “I don’t have to deal with this. I’m going to see if Poison Flame is doing anything interesting.” She said as left the room. She paused after taking a few steps out of the doorway, then looked around, before shaking her head and continuing on to the command deck.

That was one ‘con down, now for the other one. Comet peaked back into the room, he was still obsessively cleaning the window. It looked like it could take awhile. She checked the time and weighed her options. She decided to risk it. This decepticon was so obsessed with his window he probably wouldn’t notice anything.

Remembering the brief training the resident cyber-ninja, Permafrost, gave her, Comet stuck to the wall as she looked around the recreation room for a good place to plant the bug. It would have to be something that wasn’t interacted with often. She spotted a vent with a table beneath it, and carefully made her way there.

Now the question was, could she climb the table without making noise? If it was scaled for autobots, the answer would be easily, but this table was just high enough that she couldn’t be sure. She glanced back at the decepticon mech, then checked the time again. She would have to risk it. She firmly pressed her palms on the table and slowly lifted herself up, then carefully brought her feet up to the table and placed them on table with a slight thump. She paused to make sure the mech didn’t notice. He was still preoccupied, so she continued.

Once she was on the table, she stood up and reached for the grate. It was just out of reach. She jumped and grabbed the grate with one hand, then with the other placed the bug inside the vent. She let go of the vent and dropped to the table with a louder thud than before.

The decepticon stopped what he was doing and looked toward her. “Huh, must be hearing things.” He finished cleaning the window and stepped down and picked up the step stool and put it away. “Poison Flame, how long until Lord Megatron arrives?” He asked over comms.

“Just a few more cycles.”

“Perfect, just enough time for me to get the good oil out.”

A few cycles? Comet thought she had more time than that. After the decepticon left, Comet waited a bit before she left the room herself. She made her way back to the hangar. She had to hurry, but she also couldn’t move too fast and make noise. This was not the kind of dilemma a salvage worker normally had to deal with, and her single semester at the Autobot Academy didn’t do much to prepare her either.

Comet forced her thoughts back to the present. It was more important for her not to get caught than it was for her to get out of here quickly, so that’s how she focused her efforts. There weren’t any deceptions in the halls on the way to the shuttle bay, but once she got there, the mech from before was already there preparing some oil. Comet stuck to the walls as she inched her way through the hangar bay, and she was halfway to the exit, when a small craft landed then transformed into the imposing leader of all decepticons, Megatron.

“Astra Pyre, I trust you made the preparations I requested.”

“Of course my Lord. The long range sensors have been calibrated and fine tuned to the exact specifications.”

“And the Autobots?”

“Will definitely report your ship making a stop here, but they will not pick up on our long range scans. They will have no reason to take action unless they are given reason to believe that our actions pose a direct threat to Cybertron.”

“Excellent work. My science officer will be here shortly to start the scans.”

Comet wondered what they could be scanning for. She decided to stay for just a little longer, in the hopes that something would be said about it, then she could report to Glacier Prime.

“Until she arrives, would you like to take a tour of the base? Or perhaps you would like to partake of the special oil blends I had prepared for you ahead of time.”

“That won’t be necessary. Blackarachnia will be here soon.”

Almost on cue a small shuttle landed and from it, stepped out a lithe femme, with organic componants. Looking closer, if the organic parts were ignored Blackarachnia appeared to have an autobot frame. Comet found this interesting, but otherwise not worth reporting on.

“Blackarachnia I presume? I will show you where the scanners are and you can get started.” Astra Pyre started leading her away out of the hangar.

“How far can your long range scanners detect?”

“All of this sector, and several lightyears beyond. These scans will definitely go a long way in narrowing the search for the Allspark.”

Comet’s optics widened. She had to report this as soon as she could. She waited until Megatron was at the door before she started moving, but as she started, Megatron stopped in his tracks and looked around the hangar until his optics landed on Comet. Did he see her? She held perfectly still. Her cloak didn’t make her perfectly invisible; there was a slight shimmer, especially if she moved around. Most bots didn’t know what to look for, so it wasn’t a problem, but now she worried that Megatron was one of those few bots that did know how to spot her.

“Is everything alright my lord?” Astra Pyre asked.

Megatron narrowed his optics, then aimed his cannon in Comet’s direction and fired. In that instance, Comet could have sworn her spark stopped. The blast hit just the slightest bit to her right, she was alive, but that was way too close for comfort.

Megatron turned back to Pyre. “Yes, everything’s fine. Must have been a trick of the light.”

Comet waited until a cycle after the two mechs had left the hangar to continue out. Once she was out on the surface of the moon she ran until she was out of visual range then transformed, her cloak flickering out until she was in vehicle, she was counting on them not noticing the quick flicker of her signal for her escape.

It took a few cycles to get to the crater where she parked the shuttled used to get here. It was one she borrowed from the planet below, since the inhabitants made trips to both moons frequently enough that it wasn’t something the Decepticons wouldn’t take note of. Once inside the shuttle Comet slumped in the chair and took a moment to calm her nerves.

That was too much. This whole experience just proved that she was not cut out for this kind of work...she didn’t always think that though. It was only after she got expelled from the academy that she even started questioning whether being a hero was in her programming or not. Before, she was top of her combat classes, and performed above average in all her subjects. Getting into the Elite Guard wasn’t a question of if, but when, then everything came crashing down after a single semester. Worst part was, she didn’t even fully remember what happened. All she knew was that she was expelled, and that reason for expulsion was redacted from her file, so even she couldn’t know. Everything else she could only guess at.

Comet booted up the shuttle engines. The trip back to Morengo was, thankfully, uneventful, so by the time she got there, she was much more put together than when she left the moon. She landed the shuttle on the far side of the planet in a scrapyard that was owned by the cybertronian neutral she borrowed it from.

Sandblaster was waiting for her by the landing pad. “I hope everything is still in one piece.”

“Don’t worry I took care of it.” Comet stepped out. “Though it does have a problem with veering off slightly to the left.”

“It’s been like for a while, it adds character. Surprised you noticed. I thought you haven’t piloted many shuttles.”

“I’ve piloted enough.”

“How was Surtr?”

“You’ve been there before; I doubt it’s changed much.”

“Fair enough, but what were you doing there anyway?”

“Same as you…” Comet had no idea why he made semi-frequent trips that moon.

“Collecting moon sand for art?”

“Okay, no, but I’m not allowed to talk about it.” Comet made her way over to the shuttle she took from Ymir. “Out of curiosity, does your art have anything to do with why you left the Autobots?”

He gave her a humorless chuckle. “You could say that. During the war, the Autobot council would only let me continue pursuing my art if I did propaganda pieces for them, I wasn't interested in that.”

“I see.” She nodded. “Oh, one last thing before I go, the stained-glass window I saw on the Decepticon base, did you create it?”

“And the one that was shattered before I put the current one in.”

“Who does it depict?”

Sandblast shrugged. “Dunno, Astra Pyre always used titles for her instead of her name.”

That mech was even more obsessed than he first appeared. Comet waved goodbye then took her shuttle back up to Ymir base. As soon as she landed, she was ushered into de-contamination. “This is ridiculous, I never came into contact with any organics.”

“Doesn’t matter.” Permafrost responded. “It’s standard procedure for visiting a planet inhabited by organics.”

Comet got sprayed directly in the face, and she put up her battle mask in response.

“Hey, put that back. Let’s get this done quickly, please.”

Comet begrudgingly re-opened her battle mask. “I didn’t have to do this when I was only working salvage.”

“I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that.” She shut down the decontamination chamber. “Come on you need to report to Glacier.”

They made their way to the command center, where Borealis was tuning his equipment into the frequency of the bugs. The first voice to come through was Megatron’s “Another dead end.” He sounded frustrated, but Comet was relieved.

“This is unfortunate news my Lord, but perhaps if given a few solar cycles we could upgrade our scanners to encompass a wider area.”

“That won’t be necessary. We should be moving on. Oh, and one more thing, do a full sweep of your base for listening devices or hidden cameras, anything that could be a security risk.”

“You think the autobots are attempting to spy on us?”

“With that traffic between this moon and the planet, you can’t be too cautious.”

“Yes my Lord.”

Borealis turned off the comms. “Well, that didn’t last.”

“Stay at the comms and record anything you can until they find our bugs.” Glacier ordered. He turned to Comet. “Do you know what the Decepticons were looking for?”

“The Allspark.”

“I see. Then it’s a good thing they didn’t find any sign of it. I’ll report this to Ultra Magnus.”

Comet was left alone. She went over to the window and looked out at the Autobot settlement below. Less than a hundred Autobots, all out here because it was the furthest they could get from the Autobot government while still falling under its protection, and she happened to be unlucky enough to get forced into a government job anyway. Her old drill sergeant was right, she was a walking disaster. She thought she proved him wrong when she got into the Academy, but turns out he was still right in the long run.

In the window’s reflection, she saw Borealis approach her. “I hope you’re not sulking.”

“I don’t sulk.”

“Good, because the ‘cons just finished their sweep of the base. They only found two of our bugs, looks like your mission wasn’t for nothing.”

“Which one could they not find?”

“The one in their rec room.”

Comet smiled to herself, glad that her efforts didn’t go to waste.


End file.
